Choice
by Revhead
Summary: To stay, or to go. Sam has compelling reasons to leave, but will he? A season 9 fic, slight spoilers for 9x22.


**Choice**

Sam had two choices.

To stay, or to go.

At this point, leaving seemed to be the better option.

Dean was hell-bent on giving into the First Blade. He was embracing the rage and the darkness, giving into the violence and the bloodlust, surrendering his morals and his humanity. He was obsessed, addicted, half-way to insane and he didn't care.

Sam had tried talking to him. He had tried to reason with him, tried to suggest that Dean leave the Blade behind, but Dean was having none of it. If Sam tried to take it from him by force, it would only end in blood. Sam didn't want to believe that Dean would kill him, but he couldn't discount the possibility. After all, Dean bore the Mark of Cain, and Cain had murdered his brother.

Staying was dangerous, that much Sam knew.

Dean wasn't really giving him a reason to stick around. He was shutting Sam out from the important hunts, refusing to trust him, refusing to listen. He hadn't apologised for turning Sam into an angel condom against his will, for subjecting him to the trauma of being a helpless spectator as his own two hands were used to kill Kevin, for letting Gadreel in when he _knew_ Sam would rather die than go through the horror of possession again after everything Lucifer had put him through. Mixed in with a lifetime of bad memories – of Dean calling him 'freak' and 'monster', rejecting him, walking away from him, choosing others over him, blaming Sam when things went wrong between them, burying their issues instead of dealing with them, and always justifying his actions instead of admitting he was wrong – this betrayal was just too much for Sam to cope with. For all that he had always promised to look after his little brother, Dean had _hurt_ him more times than he could count. And now Dean had turned their partnership into a dictatorship, finally giving name to his tendency to take charge, override Sam's opinions and bark out orders the way that Dad used to.

Sam wasn't sure that their relationship had ever been healthy. 'Dangerously co-dependent' had been the diagnosis from one mental health professional, and he hadn't been wrong. But lately it had morphed into something even more damaging and destructive.

Recognising how strangled they were, Sam had attempted to untangle them from the barbed wires of love, betrayal, mistrust, dependence, self-sacrifice, abuse and need. Their relationship was choked and dying, they were hurting each other more with each day, month and year that passed, and they only had the power to inflict so much harm because they were brothers. So Sam tried to take a step back, the give them some breathing room, to give them a chance to establish themselves as individuals and then work out where to go from there. He thought that, as partners, they could start again and build this thing from the ground up.

It didn't work.

Severing their bond had been a mistake. The Winchester brothers were two halves of a whole that were never meant to be separated.

Without Sam, Dean had lost his purpose, his moral compass, his hope, his humour. He had said once that they kept each other human and Sam had been sure the remark had been targeted towards him because of the demon blood and his destiny as Lucifer's vessel. But he was seeing Dean transform before his very eyes, twisted by the Mark he had taken because Sam wasn't there to stop him, and he was beginning to realise that it worked both ways. Dean could have gone dark side a long time ago, after Mom, after Hell, after Purgatory. Sam was his reason, and Sam had taken that away.

But Dean wasn't the only one suffering from their shattered bond.

Sam was _alone_ now. He had no one. No one to talk to about the stuff that really mattered, no one to lean on when times got hard, no one to joke with, no one to trust and rely on. The trials and losing Kevin and all the other crap he had faced in recent years had messed with Sam's head and he needed someone to listen, to understand what he was going through, to be there for him and let him know that everything was going to be okay. Instead, the ground had been ripped out from beneath his feet, leaving him floundering, drowning. He was isolated, lonely. Lost. He used to know that he and Dean were in this together, that it was the two of them against the world, that Dean was his rock in a universe gone mad. He had lost everyone else, but Dean had always been there.

What were they now? Not brothers, not partners. A ticking time bomb, and the man standing in his way.

They were going to destroy each other.

Sam knew he should go. He should leave Dean to the Blade and his crusade to kill Metatron, and get the hell out of Dodge. Dean would go crazy, people would die, but Sam would be far, far away. Safe.

But he couldn't.

Because after everything, after all the pain, after unforgivable betrayals, after harsh words and shattered trust… they were still family.

Dean was all he had left. Dean had helped him keep going after Jessica died, gone to Hell to save his life, dragged him back from demon blood addiction, forgiven him for ending the world, supported his quest for redemption, pulled his soul from the Pit to piece him back together, found a way to fix his crazy, stopped him from killing himself with the demon trials, and stood by him through everything. Sam would be damned if he let this Mark and this Blade steal Dean from him.

To stay, or go – it wasn't even a choice. He wasn't going anywhere. No matter what the cost, no matter how bad it got, Sam was not going to give up on family. Not this time, never again.

Dean was his brother, and Sam wanted him back.

_Fin_

_A/N: Dedicated to the anonymous reviewer who pointed out that my fic "Broken Bond" did not acknowledge Sam's side of the story. I admit that I have struggled to see this situation from Sam's point of view because all I can see is how dead Dean is inside and it hurts, it _hurts_, but this is my attempt to understand where Sam is coming from. _


End file.
